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A month ago, I got into an Uber with a Cuban driver. She pronounced my name right, which we bonded over, and started chatting. She told me that earlier, she’d picked up a young construction worker who’d gotten into her car cautiously and immediately begun to cry.

With a heavy heart, he told the driver he’d come home from work to find that his wife and baby had been taken by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He didn’t know where they’d gone or how to get in contact with them without risking being detained himself.

Since January 2025, ICE has conducted an unprecedented number of workplace and community raids. President Donald Trump’s administration has increased the number of at-large arrests by 600%. These large-scale arrests target minority communities, especially in blue-collar industries where immigrants stereotypically work, like construction and landscaping developments.

White nationalism guides ICE like a north star as it pursues its insidious goal of the largest domestic deportation operation in U.S. history, targeting 15 to 20 million people. While this kind of ethnic purging is nothing new, the mass surveillance we’re undergoing is. We can’t run or hide from the panopticon of our government.

At least one person has died every week while in ICE detention due to abhorrent living conditions.

At a detention center in Dilley, Texas, detainees endure cases of measles, eat moldy food and battle persistent illnesses from sleeping in metal-bedded rooms shared by at least a dozen people. RAICES, a Texas-based nonprofit that provides legal representation to many families in Dilley, has raised concerns about insufficient medical care on at least 700 occasions since August 2025.

On April 20, about 200 immigrants detained at Baldwin, Michigan’s North Lake Processing Facility, launched a hunger and labor strike, denouncing medical neglect, prolonged confinement and other inhumane conditions. Multiple deaths, including suicides, have been linked to the facility.

But the negative health effects caused by ICE exist far outside the walls of detainment centers.

In fear of detainment, countless immigrant families forgo medical care, avoid trips to the store for basic necessities and keep children home from school. The result is a chilling effect where pervasive surveillance creates anxiety that causes immigrant communities to isolate themselves and avoid leaving their homes. This leads to severe public health consequences.

Allostatic load refers to the cumulative wear and tear on the body and brain caused by chronic stress. When the body is repeatedly exposed to stress, it protects itself through a process called allostasis. But when that adaptation is consistent, it leads to allostatic load, disrupting normal physiological function. Among immigrants, high allostatic load is linked to increased cardiovascular, metabolic, immune and mental dysfunction over time.

The public health risks caused by ICE are both violent and latent. In many cases, there’s a lag period between traumatic events and the ensuing health repercussions. The mental health toll of these life-altering, horrifying experiences will forever plague children’s and families’ lives.

I remember seeing a picture of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old pre-K student, being escorted by multiple armed guards in his blue bunny hat like a criminal rather than a child.

Now, he constantly worries about being detained by ICE again. His parents say he isn’t the same little boy he was before. His childhood has been robbed. Liam now sees a psychiatrist regularly due to exhibited signs of psychological trauma, including hypervigilance and isolation.

Nine-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra, from Colombia, drew a portrait of her and her mother wearing their detainee ID badges with a note expressing her desire to leave the detention center. Around 3,500 detainees — more than half of whom are minors — have cycled through the Dilley center, where Guerra was kept since it reopened. Some children in Dilley have become so distraught that they’ve self-harmed or talked about suicide.

Since January, 17 people have died in ICE custody and eight others have been fatally shot by agents. Each of those 25 lives taken this year represents someone’s entire world.

In Onondaga County, the number of people arrested by immigration agents jumped fivefold from 2024 to 2025, with hundreds detained. Most didn’t have any criminal history.

Local raids in Syracuse exacerbate the repercussions of immigration crackdown by increasing stress and health risks within the community. It’s hard to alleviate this omnipresent fear, but we must do our best by expressing solidarity. Volunteering with Syracuse Immigration and Refugee Network or the Eastern Farm Workers Association is a great first step. Contacting Congress representatives is also effective in swaying electoral opinions, but it’s most imperative that we vote for humanitarian politicians in the midterms.

Valeria Martinez-Gutierrez is a senior majoring in geography, sociology and environment, sustainability and policy. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at vmarti10@syr.edu.

Published on April 29, 2026 at 9:57 pm